


Of Monsters and Men

by Mikaeru



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Crowley is a Japanese Dragon Demon, Demon Crowley (Good Omens), M/M, Yes I know, author is not a scalie, he's not a dragon for long tho, oh my god they were cavemates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-19
Updated: 2020-02-19
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:15:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22806937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mikaeru/pseuds/Mikaeru
Summary: Aziraphale comes to Crowley with a request, and repays him with stories.
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 44
Collections: COWT - Clash Of the Writing Titans/Chronicles Of Words and Trials





	Of Monsters and Men

**Author's Note:**

> YEEHAW FOLKS! As usual not beta-ed, I'm the rogue child God would like to forget She has. My grammar and my vocabulary suck balls, but I'm trying, love me please. In this story, Crowley is a mizuchi, a Japanese dragon who lives near water. Written for the COW-T, M2, Japanese mythology. #MEMBRODURONULLODECORO

There's something dripping from the roof of the cave, so Aziraphale murmurs a word and his head is waterproof. He hates being uncomfortable, and wet hair certainly classifies as uncomfortable. The air is still and silent, and there's not enough light. Putting an hand in his bag, he realizes he has forgotten his torch; he can see it on the table, right next the door, where he has put it yesterday night before bed. He sighs and pronounces a small spell under his breath, a bit longer that the one before, and now there's a little ball of light in his hands, slightly warm, the size of an orange. He breathes on it, making it float in front of him like a fairy.

“Demon? Are you there?”, he asks, voice cautious and eyes darting everywhere – the rocks he can barely see, the water of which he can hear the very thin sounds, and desperately hoping there isn't anything unnaturally moving near him, “I have come to ask for a favour.”

He knows this is a shot in the dark; it's been over a century since the demon was last seen. But he's desperate, all of Tadfield is, and this is their last hope; some forgotten magic, the roots of which they can't comprehend, not even fathom, something more ancient than the books they all learned spells on, even older than the words and tales. Gabriel said he couldn't find any creature willing to help them, no fairies nor gnomes or elves.

“Demon?”, he calls again, when the only sounds he can hear are the water dripping somewhere. Then he arrives at the centre of the cave, where he sees a lake in the middle, lit by some fluctuating blue fires. The demon should be there, at least Gabriel said so; it should be a creature of the water, some sort of snake or dragon. He suddenly feels strange about calling the demon 'it' and 'demon'; they were all forced to learn the name of every flower, every little bug, every stupid mundane spell (the one to mend clothes, the one to wash your car, the one to change the shape of clouds, the one to make your enemy's voice a squirrelly squeak), and no one ever bothered to learn the demon's name. It sounds ungrateful, and that's something he hates with a passion. He promises himself to ask for it the moment the demon decides to show itself.

But the cave is silent, the lake deep and black, and his voice bounces against the walls, thinning. He doesn't know about incantations, special words he should use – should he call the demon in Latin, or Ancient Greek, or old English? He knows all of them, but what should he say?

“Demon?” he tries again in his language, raising his voice as high as he can, “Are you there? I'm on my knees, I'm begging you -”

“The fuck you want, human?”, comes the reply all of a sudden, voice deep and gravelly. Something emerges from the water, making the floating lights tremble. The demon is a green creature, long and thin, and clearly angry. “I was sleeping. Been doing that for just the past one hundred years. And then you came here shouting like it's your place.”

Aziraphale gulps, tightening his grip around his purse. He straightens his back, looks the demon directly in his golden eyes, keeping his head high. “I'm Aziraphale, from Tadfield. What's your name?”

There's a pause. “Why are you asking for my name?”

“Because I just told you mine, and it's only polite to know who I am talking to.”

The beast narrows his eyes, suspiciously. “You know who you talking to, human. I'm the demon you came to ask a favour to.”

“Yes,” he says, worrying at his lip, “nevertheless I'd like to know your name.”

There's another long pause, as if the demon has forgotten it. “Name's Crowley, human.”

“And you're... male?”

“The fuck you talking about? I'm a demon, how can I be male?”

“Oh, nothing, it's just easier to me to refer to you in such terms.”

The demon growls, impatient and scornful. He (Aziraphale has decided he's male) doesn't want this conversation, and frankly neither does Aziraphale; but he thinks of Adam, of his pale face and deep cough, throat raw and bleeding, the trembling that has seized his body in the past three days. He deeply wants the boy to heal. In a village as tiny as Tadfield every life is precious as diamonds.

“Well, you're right, I'm here to ask you something. There's a boy -”

“There's always a boy, or a girl, or a genderless child,” Crowley scoffs, his head wobbling a little, like Aziraphale does when he's thinking, “no one every come to me saying 'there's a man in his forties', it's like once one becomes of legal age you don't care anymore.”

“I, I never thought about that. This is the first time for me.”

“It shows.”

“What do you mean?”

“You being all – friendly. Like I'm not capable of just, like, destroy you with a click of my tongue. You should be afraid, human.”

He hasn't thought about that, and suddenly feels less brave. Gabriel has told him that it would be a very simple mission – go there, pay the demon, come back to cure Adam – and he, as foolish as it sounds, hasn't spent a second to think about that the demon is centuries old and more powerful that he can imagine. “Oh.”, he manages to say, throat thick with realization, and Crowley snickers.

“I'm not going to do that, human. I don't really enjoy killing, never had. So, what do you need my magic for?”

“Oh,” he exhales, feeling lighter, “there's this boy, Adam, one of the most brilliant children -”

“You wouldn't be here if he were stupid?”

“What? Yes, of course I would -”

“Yeah, yeah, I know, I was just fucking with you. Go on.”

Where did he learn to talk like that? Has he grown up among bandits? Where do demons grow? Do they grow or pop out their mothers already full size? Do demons have a mother? There are a lot of questions Aziraphale hasn't the luxury of thinking about right now – but they nevertheless flood his brain, as questions usually do with him. He takes a deep breath, hoping they would just disappear for a moment. Maybe, once at home, he can ask Gabriel. “As I was saying, Adam is very sick. We don't have what he has, and we tried every spell we know but nothing worked. He started being sick two weeks ago, after playing in the forest with his friends. The other children told us he didn't eat anything strange – we thought it was maybe a mushroom or some berries, but it isn't the case. We're at a loss. He's a loving and compassionate child and we're all desperate for him – I don't mean that if he were different we'd care less, obviously -”

“Don't fret, human, I know what you mean. But there's nothing I can do. I don't fuck with wood magic, shit's nasty..”

There's an hole under Aziraphale's feet that swallows him whole. He tightens the grip around the straps of the bag, tries to kick the galloping anxiety that is threatening to rip his body in pieces. He can't go back to the village empty-handed. “I have gold!”, he shouts, picking it out the bag, “Every villagers chipped in!”

“I –“ the demon blinks, sounding confused, “I don't need gold – oh, you think I'm an hoarder. Well, I'm not. You're thinking of Smaug.”

“Oh, I thought -”

“He's made up. D'ya think hobbits exist too?”, the demon laughs, and Aziraphale's ears grow pink, feeling scolded like a naïve child.

“Well -”

“And Harry Potter? And King Arthur and unicorns and the Tooth Fairy, too?”

“Well -”

“Well, King Arthur existed. One of my cousins was there.”

“Are you telling me the Tooth Fairy isn't real? But fairies exist, so -”

“First, they _existed_ , but your kind wiped them out because – the hell I know, y'all are just really keen on killing, I think.” Oh. Gabriel didn't tell him that. “Second, the Tooth Fairy was just made up so fairies could steal your money without repercussions. Twas a scam, lad.”

“And what about unicorns?”, Aziraphale asks, suddenly very curious about what's real and what's not.

“Uh,” a strange throaty noise, something that sounds like half-hidden guilt (Aziraphale knows perfectly well that kind of noises), “I think we ate them.”

“You ate all the unicorns?!”

“It's the circle of life.”

“Bringing an entire species to extinction?”

“At least we don't kill for fun.”

“Well -”, but he abruptly stops, because this is not the right time – suddenly he only can see Adam, all of his friends in a circle around his bed, murmuring every spell they know, even if they know it's useless, because they want to feel useful and they won't stop trying. “But, if you can't help us, who can? You're the most powerful creature we know about! We're doomed if you don't do something!”

“And how's that my problem?”

“Because you're supposed to help us!”

“Says who? I'm a demon, you stupid human.”

“Your kind has always helped us!”

“You're thinking again about your silly stories. I'm not under any obligation to do whatever I don't want to.”

The lake swallows the demon, and the cave is once again still and mute. The air is heavy and tastes like tar.

He feels his face tight and hot and uncomfortable, but he can't think of any spell to relieve himself, and he doesn't want to. He has failed and Adam is going to die because of him, because he hasn't been able even to persuade a lazy demon. He feels panic starting to shake his body, his stomach flipping and then shrinking. He wants to puke and bang his head on the ground. He wants to shout, making the cave tremble, but the voice is trapped, his vocal chords severed. The rocks are hurting his knees, and he feels a tiny bit better.

“Crowley -” he bites out, almost choking, but before he could say anything else Crowley surfaces, looking at him with an expression that can only be described as smug. Can a dragon's face seem smug? Crowley's can, apparently.

“Yeah, I was just fucking with you. Forest magic is nothing compared to mine. I'll cure the boy, no biggie.”

Aziraphale looks at him, feeling his heart growing in size, soaring. So, Crowley just needed to know his intentions were pure, after all.

“If you're thinking that I just wanted to know what you had in your heart, I beg you to stop reading books. I slept for an hundred years, I was bored, and you seem like an easy prey to prank.”

Aziraphale frowns, knowing perfectly well Crowley has hit the mark, as he's quite the fool even among the children. He breathes in; there's no time to take offence in a demon's words. “Do I have to take the boy here? I'm not sure he would be up to the journey.”

“No thank you. As much as I like kids, they're so soft and melt so well in my mouth – I'm joking, Aziraphale, I'm joking – no, I don't want any more humans here. I'll just, like, bless your hands. I'll tell you the words of the spell, you'll have to repeat them three times every evening for a week. Easy peasy.”

“Oh. And – and that's it?”

“Yeah, pretty much. The only hard thing is that you must do it everyday at the exact same hour, not a minute later, or it won't work. You must be punctual, it's crucial.”

“Oh, I usually am,” he reassures Crowley, thinking about how he has taken his tea every day at 5 for the last twenty years, never skipping a day, 5 on the clock.

“Good. Well, let's talk business. Given that I don't take gold as a payment, how do you intend to proceed? Magic ain't cheap, you know.”

Even if Crowley told him to stop thinking about stories, it's the only way he can function in certain circumstances, so he starts flipping through all the books he can remember about magic creatures, and the bargains and first-borns and blood pacts. “I... I honestly have no idea, Crowley,” he exhales, once he has exhausted all his sources. Crowley, head on the ground (it's not bigger than a cow's, and not even scarier), closes his eyes, and the cave is very silent, uneasy. Is he thinking about a sacrifice? Who could they sacrifice? Well, there's Shadwell, he's old and grumpy, maybe not as tasty as an younger one, but he would do, probably.

“Tell you what,” says Crowley after a couple of minutes, “you can repay me with stories, since you're so fond of them.”

“Stories?”

“Real stories though. Facts about humans, about your village and whatever there is outside. I never had the chance to spend a lot of time among your kind, and I'm... fairly curious. I always wanted to ask things but everyone sees me just as a big magic worm, so no one ever listens. D'you think that's fair, Aziraphale? Come back here for a week, after the kid is better, and we call it a day.”

“And that's it?”

“Yeah, sure, that's it. I'm a dragon of simple pleasures. I bet you have a way for telling stories.”

Aziraphale scratches his forehead, unsure. “Well, I never told anyone any story, so I don't really know...”

“Did you now? I pegged you as one of those humans that love talking about knights and princesses around a fire. Do y'all still sit around a fire?”

“No, we don't. We usually sit in front of a computer, watching Netflix.”

“What's a Netflix?”

Aziraphale chuckles. “Our current storyteller.”

“And there's a Netflix in every home? Inside of a – a computer? What's that?”

“The box in which our Netflix lives.”

“What? Are they, like, some sort of gnomes?”

Aziraphale's laugh is roaring, and Crowley is taken aback by it. “Sorry!”, laughs Aziraphale again, not able to stop, “Sorry, this is most impolite, I'm very sorry...”

“I don't know why you're laughing, though.”

“Well, I'll save it for one of our sessions. Now I must be on my way. Would you be so kind to... bless my hands, as you said?”

The dragon scoffs, as he has just realized where he is and what he has to do. “Oh, yeah, sure. Come here and I'll do it.”

Standing so near him, Aziraphale can feel how cold Crowley's body is, his strange smell – something fishy, but also something ashy, smoky, not the smell one could expect from a water creature. Crowley closes his eyes, murmurs some words, and Aziraphale's hands shine for a moment. He repeats the spell three times, just to be sure.

“I'll see you in three days, then, human,” he reminds him, sounding almost unsure.

“Yes, Crowley. I'll keep my word.”

“You better, or I'll burn your stupid village to the ground.”

Despite his threatening words, Aziraphale is sure that Crowley wouldn't do anything like that. He's not sure why, as he's still a demon and demons are not well known for their good deeds and their forgiving nature, but he knows that. So he just smiles, and bid Crowley goodbye, heart as light as breeze.

In three days Adam is up and about, healthy as the day he was born, already tumbling down from the small hills between the houses. The village rejoices, and Aziraphale is the hero of the week. All the gold is back where it belongs, and when he's asked how he has paid for the spell, he smiles that the demon hasn't wanted to be paid, that it has been all generosity from his heart; that demons and humans are not so different, after all. He has just talked to him about Adam and every creature understands the suffering behind an ill child. The villagers are suspicious about that, but they have their jewels back, so they don't really care. Even Gabriel, as strange as it sounds, doesn't have anything to say, nothing to reprimand him about.

On the verge of the cave, Aziraphale spots a tall, slender man (and, rather strangely, an outsider) who's peering inside but doesn't dare to enter.

“Hello,” Aziraphale waves at him, “is there something I can help you with, my dear?”

“Oh.” The man is startled, but doesn't look at him. “It's just – I heard about a really powerful dragon, a demon I think?, but I'm too afraid to enter. What if it tries to eat me?”

“He's not like that, dear boy,” Aziraphale patiently replies, feeling a pang of sadness in listening to Crowley referred as 'it', “and he's not scary at all. You can trust me, we're friends.”

“You're friends with a demon?”, the man asks in a scandalized voice, as if Aziraphale has confessed to kick puppies after Sunday mass, “But how can you? Aren't demons nasty things made of sin and despair? Don't they suck the souls of well-meaning men?”

“No, I don't think they -”

“And isn't gold the only thing they want? I don't even have a silver coin on me, do you think you could help me?”

“Oh, no, dear, they don't want -”

“Or will I have to sacrifice my virginal body?

A strangled laughter before he can reply. A voice he already know. The man is looking right at him, now, and he has golden eyes, twinkling with cheeky delight.

“... Crowley, is that you?”

“Well, duh. Come on inside before someone sees us and offer me a child.”

There are a dozen floating fires, drawing soft shadows on the ground. The roof isn't dripping, and the air feels dryer, softer. The cave is deeper than he thought, so much he can't see the end of it. Crowley sits down, cross-legged, near the lake, and looks at him excitedly.

“So, did you bring the Netflix?”

Aziraphale sits down in front of him, feels like the centre of the universe; it's not something he's used to, but now it's rather nice. Crowley looks like an eager pupil.

“I think we need a few steps before it,” he smiles, and Crowley frowns.

“But I wanted to see it! Or is it an him? Or an her?”

“It's an it.”

“So it isn't a gnome, after all,” says Crowley very seriously, pondering, and Aziraphale finds it extremely funny and somehow quite sweet, like meeting an impressionable time traveller. He wonders how old Crowley is.

“No, it isn't. But I think I should tell you about television first.”

He finds out that Crowley is the most inquisitive creature, and he's particularly curious about families (“So it's just the female that carries the puppies.” “Well, all of nature works like that.” “Not the seahorses.”); Aziraphale asks him about his, in case he has one. Crowley taps his cheek with an hand, the other one balled under his chin.

“Yeah, big one. Even though I don't know if you can call it like that.... we're, like, the spawn of the same blob of darkness? I don't think there's a word for that. We're from Japan, but I like it here better.”

“Oh. You don't... look Japanese.”

“I don't look like anything, this is just the vessel I use not to scare little fearful humans like you.”

“But I already saw you as a dragon, why going through the hassle of presenting in this form?”

Crowley shrugs. “Just thought it would be nice to be on the same level. What, you don't like it?”

“Oh no no no, nothing like that! I was just wondering.”

“Besides, I haven't used this body in over a couple of centuries, it was starting to grow mold.”

“Oh, how dreadful.”

“Yeah, yeah. Do you have a sofa in your home?”

He learns that Crowley is thoroughly fascinated with comfortable furniture; once, just before the French Revolution, he broke in a noblewoman's house, and passed the best part of that day gently roasting under the sun on the plushest chair. He has taken many forms during the centuries – a crow, a beetle, a fox, a sick girl in need – but he likes to be in his reptilian shape the most.

“D'you like being a man?”

“Well, it comes in handy, sometimes. I – I can't say I ever thought about it. I'm not one to... discuss things, as it were.”

“I wouldn't like to be a man. Or a human, for that matter. It'd be so boring, and I couldn't sleep as much as I want to. I'd have to _work_ ,” and he says with so much sincere disgust he makes Aziraphale laughs out loud. Crowley is sprawled on the ground, legs still crossed in a position that looks rather uncomfortable. “But I like parties and festivals, those are fun. So noisy. Tell me about your last party.”

Aziraphale, voice fond and sweet, tells him about Marianne's birth in March, the first girl in the village since Pepper, the celebration that lasted for three days, and then he recalls the cakes and the sandwiches in so much details that, the next day, Crowley has them on a plate, the light smell of the cake sticky and tantalising. Aziraphale is most delighted, and takes a tuna and cucumber sandwich; the cucumber is crispy and fresh, the bread is soft and light, and the tuna is cooked to perfection.

“You're not the only one who knows useless tricks,” says Crowley, still human-shaped, quite chuffed with himself. He then asks Aziraphale, non sequitur, if he knows the name of those flowers he has seen yesterday on the verge of the cave, about which he has forgotten until now. It's not the first time Crowley does that, bouncing from a subject to another; Aziraphale pictures his mind full of ping pong balls, light and clattery, carried by every little whim like a spoiled wind.

“They're empire blue butterfly bushes. We use them for spells for barren fields. You may want to weed them out though, they attract deer and rabbits.”

“Why should I? They're nice and likely not a pain in the ass if you leave them alone. I didn't know humans have names for everything.”

“How demons refer to things?”

“Ah, we usually don't. We don't need to. We don't talk. You know, you're the first one who ever asked for my name.”

“Is not the usual thing one does when one meets someone for the first time?”

“Yeah, between humans, maybe. Your kind doesn't care about being polite with monsters.”

“I think that's dreadful. And you're not a monster.”

“S' not an insult. I'm a monster 'cause I'm not human. It's like saying you're blond. Blond's not an insult.”

“Oh, well, when you put it like that... but, if demons don't talk, how come you have a name? Who gave you that?”

Crowley lifts his chin, chest puffed with pride, eyes bright. “I got it myself. It's mine and I picked it out myself.”

Aziraphale can feel his joy, how important that decision has been to him. He remembers being small and scared among nameless, faceless people, being called 'kid' as if he wasn't nothing else than a small human, as if he was an object. “Oh, that's remarkable, Crowley. Do you remember when you did that?”

“Around 1200, when I was a monk in Denmark. You know monasteries are choke full of homosexuals? It was very funny, playing the lover of someone different every week. And I obviously needed a name for that. I don't remember where I found it, or if I made it up, and I don't really care, in the end. It sounds good and I like it. Do you like it, 'Ziraphale?”, he asks him, excited, stars on his tongue. He smiles that yes, it's a beautiful name, and it suits him. And then he proceeds to tell him about the time he tried to write a novel, when he was fourteen, and he has spent two weeks finding the name of his protagonists, and another three weeks thinking about the historical setting and their eyes and hair and quirks and family trees. He has fantasized about his story for a long time, never writing down a single word.

“So... you tried to be a Netflix?”

Aziraphale laughs again, delighted. “You really want to know what Netflix is, don't you?”

“Yeah! Stories are important and I want to know how humans tell them now!”

So the next day Aziraphale brings his computer, and Crowley is awestruck. He's bursting with questions (“How do you put all that stuff inside it? What's a wifi? Where did all the typewriters go? What's with all these colours and music and the sex scenes? What do you mean there are _books_ on the internet? You can _attend universities_ online? What the fuck?”) and the cave is not the only thing filled with light. They chatter about books and movies and plays until night (Crowley loves historical novels and comedies and loathes biographies, usually because they're filled with rubbish, and loved Le voyage dans la lun; he had wanted to act as an extra, but he was weak during that time, and being human is strenuous. Aziraphale loves historical novels and romance and war movies, but only the WWII ones - “There was a fucking WWII? How stupid are you?” - with a somehow happy ending, but can't stomach horrors and thrillers, and Crowley teases him about it, because he's a big spooky fan), when Aziraphale stretches his arms over his head, yawning. He can sense that Crowley wants to ask him something (something he'd reply yes to), but the demon simply bids him goodnight, sternly reminding him to come back tomorrow, as if Aziraphale isn't already counting the minutes.

There are so many floating fires that he can see every rock, every inch of moss, every ripple on the lake. Aziraphale has brought a bottle of wine, some of the good stuff Tracy brews in her basement, and they get pleasantly tipsy, the world round and soft at the edges, orange and dusty pink. They talk about families, Aziraphale's brothers and sisters, how he's still considered the baby of the family even though he's almost forty because they all love making fun of him for his passions and hobbies, and the numerous demons that Crowley has come to consider his siblings during the centuries, entities he has met more than a few times around the world. Crowley drunkly trails off, starting a rant about Japan and how many fucking creatures live there, kappa and tanuki and amikiri and ushi-onna and how much he likes fucking with people but he's, like, not evil, something he can't admit out loud, he likes helping people because humans are so lost and weak but they're so happy when he comes to their rescue, he likes how they try and how they have kept magic during the centuries, even with their computers and their smartphones and all those wonders he's learning about, and how cute is that, that they still use spells and herbs and spices like in the Middle Ages, he haven't liked Middle Ages, but he had helped a lot of women escaping their witch trials and he had drowned a lot of men instead, and scared a lot of them too, showing up in their bedroom as a big fucking dragon, he terrorized the shit out of them, and isn't that funny 'Ziraphale? Yeah, yeah, it obviously is, and they laugh and laugh and something warm and smooth grows between them, sleepy and lazy like a house cat. Crowley chugs the rest of the wine, shatters the bottle against a wall. “Wahoo!”, he shrieks, and Aziraphale does the same, exhilarated, light and soft.

Aziraphale is back the next day, vibrating with gossip: finally young Newt proposed to Anathema, after seeing each other for more than three years, and there will be a summer wedding. And Darcy gave birth to a healthy baby boy, and Elizabeth found out she's pregnant after eight years of trying. Crowley is thrilled, as weddings and babies are agents of utter chaos; he had crashed his fair share of weddings, drinking his ass off.

“Do you like weddings, 'Ziraphale?”

Yes, of course, he loves them, he loves celebrating love, and there's nothing more joyous than a couple vowing everlasting promises under the eyes of God. Crowley has always been curious about love, because he can't feel it, and that's why he has devoured books and legends and fairy tales, because the less he knows the more he wants to acquire, to conquer, as if knowledge is an hill he can camp on. Can Aziraphale tell him about love? What's love for him?

“Oh,” he just says, lips slightly parted, “I don't know. I think it's a fire.”

“Booh, dull. They all said it's a fire. Use your imagination, human.”

Aziraphale pouts. “Well, I'm not a Netflix, you know. Love is – that is, love is...”, he trails off, not knowing what to say, “to me it's just something that fills you. Like lake water, wood in the fireplace. Something that fills a void you didn't know you had. It's a song you never heard before. A book that's been written for you.”

“You're such a sap, 'Ziraphale. You sound like a Jane Austen novel.”

“Always been, dear.”

He returns the next day, and the next after that; he works during the day (restoring books, borrowing them to the villagers, reading them to the blind and the sick) and after six p.m. he's always in the cave. A week has passed, then two, then three. Crowley asks about birds, about foxed and wolves, about how to make babies, and let Aziraphale rant about the state of the library, and how he failed a spell to make his daisies grow faster (“No, 'Ziraphale, you don't have to cross your wrists before, but after you said the formula, and the last part is modern Greek, not ancient. I know, it's stupid. Try to translate ancient demoniac spells in current human language.”), and then he wants to know about cars and air planes and trains and Google Maps – that he finds it completely ridiculous, as there's a spell way too precise than the app – and how to grow apples and strawberries and bushes of roses. There's something precious, almost fragile, almost dreamy, in telling Crowley about human life; he looks at it through a microscope, inspecting it atom by atom, and finds beauty in dusty corners, in forgotten attics: travelling in an old, creaking car, the smell of fresh sheets, swimming, taking a long bath full of pink bubbles, eating warm soup in the middle of the winter. Suddenly, a thought strikes him.

“Crowley?”, he says, after he has let him bubble about cactuses, “Can I ask you a question?”

“Yeah, sure thing, human.”

“Are you... stuck in here?”

Crowley's smile is sour, somehow surrendered, like a man too old to fight a war but nevertheless called to serve the cause. Every century, every year is now visible in lines around his mouth, his eyes – irises a shade darker than before, from bright new gold to a jewel forgotten for years. “Have you realized it just now? Not the sharpest tool in the shed, aren't you.”

His stomach falls into a pit, and his skin tighten around his body. “But why? You're a demon, you know magic that's older than this cave, but you're trapped in here?”

Crowley's eyes darts from his face to the wall to the roof, awkwardly. It's something he's ashamed of, and Aziraphale feels like an ass for asking him. “I'm sorry, dear, it's not -”

“It's my punishment,” he confesses at last, heart in his throat. He's looking at his hands folded in his lap, nails still long and black, scales green and shiny on his fingers; there are some on his cheeks, on his neck, and he hides his fangs behind his tight lips, “I told you we don't have the concept of family, but I didn't tell you that we have, instead, a very strong sense of hierarchy. I'm not supposed to wander off, to help humans as much as I do. During the centuries I did everything a demon shouldn't do, and I was happy about that. We're supposed to cause only trouble and sorrow, we were born for that, but there's something malfunctioning in me. And they caught me, and I have to live here for two centuries at least. I'm allowed to take just a short stroll, some inches from the cave. I would die if I walk away. Just... disappearing from the universe.”

“Oh. Oh, I'm so sorry, Crowley, it's... horrible, I don't have the right words for it.”

Crowley, folded in on himself, arms around his knees, shrugs. “They made sure the humans thought me dead. But it seems your village hasn't received the memo.” He lifts his head, and Aziraphale finds a timid smile, something not so sure of itself, but that stands where it is nonetheless. “And they haven't checked on me since before I fell asleep.”

There's little solace in his words, but Crowley is trying to wrap them around himself. Aziraphale cups his hands and breathes in a couple of words, and there's a flame the exact colour of Crowley's eyes, in front of his nose. Crowley blinks at it, slightly confused, and Aziraphale claps his hands twice and the fire switches to a book.

“A cheap trick,” he smiles. Crowley rolls his eyes, but doesn't let go of the book. “It's a poetry book. It's about whatever you like best, and whatever you need the most when you're reading it.”

Crowley shoots a look at him, then at the book, then at him again. “This ain't no cheap trick, 'Ziraphale. It's pretty advanced magic.”

He notices it now, how he calls him 'Ziraphale; his siblings and parents were, for some reasons unknown to him, very strict about his name, refusing every nickname. And Crowley gave one to him on their second day.

“Oh, well, you know, I'm almost forty years old, this is not my first attempt, I had a lot of time to practice and learn. I found it in an old book, this is the first time I've used it,” he adds proudly, huffing his chest just a little. Crowley's face opens in a fond smile, and opens the book.

“It's a poem about teacups in the shadow of a lemon tree.”

“Oh, read it to me, dear, please.”

Crowley obliges him.

The next day Aziraphale is in the cave, and the next after that and the next after that, week after week and month after month. There's a warm and dry corner of the cave covered in books, there's a lamp, a small drawer full of candies and chocolate, and there's a sofa Crowley is often sprawled on, his body human but his spine still reptilian. Sometimes Aziraphale spends the night on it, and Crowley rests coiled besides him on the ground; but one day, when outside the cave the summer is blooming, Aziraphale notices it and insists Crowley sleeps at his side, they can always widen the sofa, as they're both made of magic. Crowley protests it isn't a big deal and, as a dragon demon, he's used to sleep like an animal. But it's of no use arguing with Aziraphale, because he always wins, stubborn as he is. The human comes back everyday, and the demon keeps on learning everyday – sometimes about other humans, and sometimes about something else, something he didn't think he had space for; something like deep magic.


End file.
